Resources for extended non-combat skill checks

[philosophyguy]

I was just re-reading the Dungeons & Dragons 4e DM Guide 2 and loved the detail in how to construct non-combat skill challenges, such as tracking down a mastermind or disrupting an evil ritual. For those that don't have that book, I'm referring to challenges in which the PCs need to get a number of successes on various skills before they get too many failures, and in which each roll has a consequence positive or negative, rather than a single skill check. So, when tracking down a mastermind, a success at diplomacy with the townfolk might reveal some detail about the mastermind's hiding place that would give a bonus to a perception-based roll, while a failure might give a penalty to further diplomacy checks.

I feel like GURPS is even better suited to non-combat challenges than D&D because the characters are not intrinsically combat-focused, and I'm looking for resources to help build those kinds of challenges.

The Caravan to Ein Arris campaign features several examples of this sort of challenge: the tests to get hired to the caravan crew, the caravan journey across the desert, looking for the brigands, etc. I am wondering if there are other GURPS resources that focus on how to construct effective skill challenges.

I am most interested in principles that are applicable to most kinds of challenges or lists of examples to get the creative juices flowing rather than single worked examples. I'm also interested in resources that help to flesh out narratively what happens on intermediate successes or failures (as opposed to in game mechanics). How To Be A GURPS GM talks about success or failures in terms of the whole challenge but doesn't give as much advice on how to keep the challenge interesting the whole way through. Action 2 starts to move in that direction with its rules on complementary skills, but that's more focused on the mechanics rather than the narrative.

[Mr_Sandman]

Monster Hunters 2 has some good rules and guidelines for this kind of thing, especially the investigation rules.

[RyanW]

The chase rules from Action 2 might interest you.

[ericthered]

MH2 has action's chase rules as well as the investigative rules. And curse breaking.

Social engineering has a bit.

Worminghall, I believe, has some of this.

[trooper6]

I'm going to give a completely different kind of answer. I had originally thought you were asking about long skill checks and I was going to talk about my answer...but then looking at your post...I think I should talk in a more meta way.

I think the key to interesting non-combat skill checks is to rethink the campaign. Don't think of the campaign as dungeon crawling with some options for non-combat skill checks...but rethink the entire campaign to always have non-combat being an option.

I am one of the folks around here who has often both played in and GMd campaigns with very little combat--which then by definition tends to have lots of non-combat skill checks.

So these are the elements for my process, I'll use as an example, my GURPS Traveller Interstellar Wars Campaign.

So first off, I need a campaign frame. The frame for this campaign was: Far Traders being some of the few to explore alien space in the midst of a precarious cold war. Players will be crew members of a small independent trader.

Then I gave them some character creation inspirational tips that would leads to deeper characters:
-Being a Far Trader involves being away from your home planet and out of contact with it for a really, really, really long time. Why would your character be motivated to do that?
-Why would your character be interested in working on an independent trader and not for a larger corporation?
-This is a small independent Far Trader captained by an ex-Navy officer. It is said that Far Traders often commit espionage while trading in alien space. This particular captain does pass along intel to the Terrans. If you are new you don't know that, if you are old you do. What is your position regarding this?
-There was a terrible war with the Vilani a decade ago where Earth was nuked...there was a lot of death. What is your character's history with the last war?
-The campaign will start with a the captain sending out a call for job applicants. Are you a new applicant or have you been working with her for a while?
-Being a Far Trader involves a lot of downtime in between jumps...so what are your hobbies? What do you do in this downtime?
-What is your character's short term and long term goals?

I do this because I want to ensure that the PCs that are created have non-combat skills and interests. This is key to making non-combat skill checks work. They have to have the skills and they have to have non-combat lives to be motivated to use them.

Next: I make a longterm campaign plans of the antagonists/
For this campaign: The alien sector governor plans on staging an assassination attempt against her by the humans in order to get the votes she needs from her planetary governors to start another war with the humans. The assassin is a passenger on the ship of the PC.

Then I have short term campaign problems.
Planet 1: There is a ultimate fighter championship on this planet that ends up becoming a proxy for the various galactic factions. The planetary governor wants to ensure that a human wins the championship and hires the PCs to do whatever it takes to make sure that happens...but no matter what...he can't be implicated in any sort of funny business.

Planet 2: The Human ambassador is holed up in his embassy and is charged with murdering the wife of the planetary governor, which whom he was having an affair. The PCs, as the only Human representatives, are charged with taking care of the problem. There is, of course, a conspiracy afoot.

There were two other planets before the final planet.

Final Planet: They have to stop the assassination and deal with politics and the Grand Ball where the assassination attempt is going to take place.

So...in every single situation I present the problem and the players come up with solutions...and those solutions are often non-combat solutions. Which then calls for non-combat skill rolls. But those rolls are not challenges I artificially place on them, but organic outgrowths of their own choices. On the first planet there was a lot of diplomacy and negotiation with the planetary governor. Then there was investigation on the competitors. They ended up entering the Pilot into the championship and he wanted to win fair and square...but he wasn't as good as the other fighters. So the players did a bunch of stuff. For the first fight they drugged the Pilot and he won that fight. But they knew they couldn't do that again. So for the second fight they did a lot of sneaking and cooking...and replaced the food of half of the contestants with food that went bad giving a number of them food poisoning. The Pilot won the next battle. Then they had the brilliant idea of giving the really, really dominant and good opponent for the last match...the combat drugs! He completely destroyed the pilot...but then the PCs called for a drug test...the Opponent was found to be positive for the combat drugs, was disqualified, the Pilot was declared the winner...and then all hell broke loose. There were non-combat skill checks all over that...but they all came because I presented them with a problem that couldn't just be solved with combat and asked them what they wanted to do. They came up with things to do.

[trooper6]

And then I want to add that I also do micro work. I look at the character sheets of the PCs before each session and I make sure there is an opportunity for each player to use some skill they haven't used yet...the more obscure the better. I usually just come up with two things per session and make sure that each player gets their random skill spotlight before the adventure as a whole is over.

But again, I don't force a skill challenge on them, I give them an opening that they tend to take for themselves.

On the first planet, the pilot when to the starport bar to drink, and I had there be a number of arcade video games and a woman who was really good and beating everyone. Now, the Pilot had Hobby Skill: Video Games. This gave him the opportunity to challenge her in a video game competition...so there was some fun non-combat skill checks that resulted in him getting a really great contact (who happened to be the daughter of a particularly war-hawkish planetary governor). They were able to use that contact to help tip the larger political struggles in their favor at the Grand Ball.

At the Grand Ball, one of the players, the Medic, had the Dancing skill...which is why this was a Grand Ball. She was able to use her dancing skill to great effect. The team had figured out who the assassin was (thanks to the Current Events: Sports skill of the Engineer)--it was a guy posing as a famous race car driver. The assassination was supposed to happen during the ball...so she asked the assassin to dance with her. And then the Medic and the Assassin were engaged in a contest of Dancing skills, him trying to maneuver them as a dancing couple close enough to the target that he could detonate the bomb he had, she trying to maneuver them out of bomb range.

So...I say the key to having fun skill challenges is to present the players with interesting problems and let the skills rolls be their attempts at a solution to the problem.

[philosophyguy]

trooper6, thank you for that detailed reply. The meta-level is actually where I feel most comfortable, and I love the method of coming back to character motivations in order to frame problems for the players.

What I really would like to improve on as a GM is my ability to, in the moment, create logical narrative consequences for successes and failures in a more complicated task. For instance, if the players' attempt to poison the food of the pilot's competitors failed, what's the narrative consequence? Do they get caught sneaking into the kitchen and need to attempt an escape? Do they accidentally spill a stimulant into the food and need to defeat pilots that have heightened reflexes?

Given enough time, I can think of those sorts of consequences. But, I loved how the DM Guide laid out a bunch of suggestions to stimulate my brainstorming, and I'm hoping there are resources that do more of that kind of thing, especially in non-dungeon delving contexts.

[trooper6]

Originally Posted by philosophyguy

What I really would like to improve on as a GM is my ability to, in the moment, create logical narrative consequences for successes and failures in a more complicated task. For instance, if the players' attempt to poison the food of the pilot's competitors failed, what's the narrative consequence? Do they get caught sneaking into the kitchen and need to attempt an escape? Do they accidentally spill a stimulant into the food and need to defeat pilots that have heightened reflexes?

This isn't so much a problem for me because I have them roll a lot. When they say they want to mess up the competitors food...that isn't one roll. We play through the scene and we roll all over the place. With many rolls it makes it easier to figure out what happens with a success or failure on an individual roll.

If a failure happens the questions have to be dealt with in the moment...and I ask: what makes sense based on the characters/situation involved, what would be narratively interesting, what would lead to a new problem to deal with? I find consequences should open up roleplaying rather than shut it down whenever possible.

So with the "Get access to the kitchen and give competitors food poison plan"

How are they going to get access to the kitchen?
Stealth? (Failure...they get caught by someone...who would it be interesting to have them caught by? A guard? A competitor? A chef? Someone else who means to do mischief?)
Distraction? (Failure...the person is not distracted, now is more alert and they need to find a new way).
Seduction? (The person is not seduced...or they are seduced...but won't leave the post...but now the PC has a very aggressive would-be boyfriend!)
False Credentials? (The guard decides to check the credentials).

Then what happens? Then you see how the players react and go from there.
Say they get into the kitchen and then they try to do the food poisoning. And the Steward does t a Cooking roll. And fails.
What could that be. Well first off...they don't know the result so they leave and hope for the best. What do I do as a GM? I have multiple options...see what makes the most sense and what would be interesting.

Maybe it has no effect. Maybe, it has the intended effect, but it also hits the PC pilot. Maybe it has an effect but is too obvious so now everyone is suspicious and the matches are paused until the culprit is found.

Then they have to get out...more rolls.

Anyway, here are some things I'll say about thinking about failed rolls:
1) I go first to the simulation. What makes sense in this situation. What would this NPC do.
2) I ask what would open up more complications and give more roleplaying rather than shut down roleplaying.
3) What seems like it would be most fun?
4) Play with the players. React to what the are doing. Let their behavior inspire the way you figure out what the failure might be. If they are sneaking by crawling through the ceiling...maybe they fall through the ceiling on a failed roll. That option for failure wouldn't be available if they are just sneaking on foot. They to make the failure specific to the circumstances.

Remember, the consequences of a failed roll might not happen right away. They can happen later. So for example, maybe they fail the stealth roll to get into the kitchen. I could say--you fail and are caught by the guards and they start shooting at you. That doesn't seem fun. But how about when they say, "We failed the stealth roll." I make a note and say..."Okay, you make your way to the kitchen." They say..."No one stops us?" I say, "Doesn't seem like it." They do their thing, but guess what? Someone caught them on the security cameras...and rather than calling the guards, records the footage and plans on blackmailing them later. That seems fun!

I don't know if that helps. But I hope so!